'\" t
.\"     Title: ANALYZE
.\"    Author: The PostgreSQL Global Development Group
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.79.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 2021
.\"    Manual: PostgreSQL 13.3 Documentation
.\"    Source: PostgreSQL 13.3
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "ANALYZE" "7" "2021" "PostgreSQL 13.3" "PostgreSQL 13.3 Documentation"
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" * Define some portability stuff
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.\" http://bugs.debian.org/507673
.\" http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2009-02/msg00013.html
.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq
.el       .ds Aq '
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" * set default formatting
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" disable hyphenation
.nh
.\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only)
.ad l
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.\" * MAIN CONTENT STARTS HERE *
.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
.SH "NAME"
ANALYZE \- collect statistics about a database
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.sp
.nf
ANALYZE [ ( \fIoption\fR [, \&.\&.\&.] ) ] [ \fItable_and_columns\fR [, \&.\&.\&.] ]
ANALYZE [ VERBOSE ] [ \fItable_and_columns\fR [, \&.\&.\&.] ]

where \fIoption\fR can be one of:

    VERBOSE [ \fIboolean\fR ]
    SKIP_LOCKED [ \fIboolean\fR ]

and \fItable_and_columns\fR is:

    \fItable_name\fR [ ( \fIcolumn_name\fR [, \&.\&.\&.] ) ]
.fi
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
\fBANALYZE\fR
collects statistics about the contents of tables in the database, and stores the results in the
pg_statistic
system catalog\&. Subsequently, the query planner uses these statistics to help determine the most efficient execution plans for queries\&.
.PP
Without a
\fItable_and_columns\fR
list,
\fBANALYZE\fR
processes every table and materialized view in the current database that the current user has permission to analyze\&. With a list,
\fBANALYZE\fR
processes only those table(s)\&. It is further possible to give a list of column names for a table, in which case only the statistics for those columns are collected\&.
.PP
When the option list is surrounded by parentheses, the options can be written in any order\&. The parenthesized syntax was added in
PostgreSQL
11; the unparenthesized syntax is deprecated\&.
.SH "PARAMETERS"
.PP
VERBOSE
.RS 4
Enables display of progress messages\&.
.RE
.PP
SKIP_LOCKED
.RS 4
Specifies that
\fBANALYZE\fR
should not wait for any conflicting locks to be released when beginning work on a relation: if a relation cannot be locked immediately without waiting, the relation is skipped\&. Note that even with this option,
\fBANALYZE\fR
may still block when opening the relation\*(Aqs indexes or when acquiring sample rows from partitions, table inheritance children, and some types of foreign tables\&. Also, while
\fBANALYZE\fR
ordinarily processes all partitions of specified partitioned tables, this option will cause
\fBANALYZE\fR
to skip all partitions if there is a conflicting lock on the partitioned table\&.
.RE
.PP
\fIboolean\fR
.RS 4
Specifies whether the selected option should be turned on or off\&. You can write
TRUE,
ON, or
1
to enable the option, and
FALSE,
OFF, or
0
to disable it\&. The
\fIboolean\fR
value can also be omitted, in which case
TRUE
is assumed\&.
.RE
.PP
\fItable_name\fR
.RS 4
The name (possibly schema\-qualified) of a specific table to analyze\&. If omitted, all regular tables, partitioned tables, and materialized views in the current database are analyzed (but not foreign tables)\&. If the specified table is a partitioned table, both the inheritance statistics of the partitioned table as a whole and statistics of the individual partitions are updated\&.
.RE
.PP
\fIcolumn_name\fR
.RS 4
The name of a specific column to analyze\&. Defaults to all columns\&.
.RE
.SH "OUTPUTS"
.PP
When
VERBOSE
is specified,
\fBANALYZE\fR
emits progress messages to indicate which table is currently being processed\&. Various statistics about the tables are printed as well\&.
.SH "NOTES"
.PP
To analyze a table, one must ordinarily be the table\*(Aqs owner or a superuser\&. However, database owners are allowed to analyze all tables in their databases, except shared catalogs\&. (The restriction for shared catalogs means that a true database\-wide
\fBANALYZE\fR
can only be performed by a superuser\&.)
\fBANALYZE\fR
will skip over any tables that the calling user does not have permission to analyze\&.
.PP
Foreign tables are analyzed only when explicitly selected\&. Not all foreign data wrappers support
\fBANALYZE\fR\&. If the table\*(Aqs wrapper does not support
\fBANALYZE\fR, the command prints a warning and does nothing\&.
.PP
In the default
PostgreSQL
configuration, the autovacuum daemon (see
Section\ \&24.1.6) takes care of automatic analyzing of tables when they are first loaded with data, and as they change throughout regular operation\&. When autovacuum is disabled, it is a good idea to run
\fBANALYZE\fR
periodically, or just after making major changes in the contents of a table\&. Accurate statistics will help the planner to choose the most appropriate query plan, and thereby improve the speed of query processing\&. A common strategy for read\-mostly databases is to run
\fBVACUUM\fR(7)
and
\fBANALYZE\fR
once a day during a low\-usage time of day\&. (This will not be sufficient if there is heavy update activity\&.)
.PP
\fBANALYZE\fR
requires only a read lock on the target table, so it can run in parallel with other activity on the table\&.
.PP
The statistics collected by
\fBANALYZE\fR
usually include a list of some of the most common values in each column and a histogram showing the approximate data distribution in each column\&. One or both of these can be omitted if
\fBANALYZE\fR
deems them uninteresting (for example, in a unique\-key column, there are no common values) or if the column data type does not support the appropriate operators\&. There is more information about the statistics in
Chapter\ \&24\&.
.PP
For large tables,
\fBANALYZE\fR
takes a random sample of the table contents, rather than examining every row\&. This allows even very large tables to be analyzed in a small amount of time\&. Note, however, that the statistics are only approximate, and will change slightly each time
\fBANALYZE\fR
is run, even if the actual table contents did not change\&. This might result in small changes in the planner\*(Aqs estimated costs shown by
\fBEXPLAIN\fR(7)\&. In rare situations, this non\-determinism will cause the planner\*(Aqs choices of query plans to change after
\fBANALYZE\fR
is run\&. To avoid this, raise the amount of statistics collected by
\fBANALYZE\fR, as described below\&.
.PP
The extent of analysis can be controlled by adjusting the
default_statistics_target
configuration variable, or on a column\-by\-column basis by setting the per\-column statistics target with
\fBALTER TABLE \&.\&.\&. ALTER COLUMN \&.\&.\&. SET STATISTICS\fR
(see
ALTER TABLE (\fBALTER_TABLE\fR(7)))\&. The target value sets the maximum number of entries in the most\-common\-value list and the maximum number of bins in the histogram\&. The default target value is 100, but this can be adjusted up or down to trade off accuracy of planner estimates against the time taken for
\fBANALYZE\fR
and the amount of space occupied in
pg_statistic\&. In particular, setting the statistics target to zero disables collection of statistics for that column\&. It might be useful to do that for columns that are never used as part of the
WHERE,
GROUP BY, or
ORDER BY
clauses of queries, since the planner will have no use for statistics on such columns\&.
.PP
The largest statistics target among the columns being analyzed determines the number of table rows sampled to prepare the statistics\&. Increasing the target causes a proportional increase in the time and space needed to do
\fBANALYZE\fR\&.
.PP
One of the values estimated by
\fBANALYZE\fR
is the number of distinct values that appear in each column\&. Because only a subset of the rows are examined, this estimate can sometimes be quite inaccurate, even with the largest possible statistics target\&. If this inaccuracy leads to bad query plans, a more accurate value can be determined manually and then installed with
\fBALTER TABLE \&.\&.\&. ALTER COLUMN \&.\&.\&. SET (n_distinct = \&.\&.\&.)\fR
(see
ALTER TABLE (\fBALTER_TABLE\fR(7)))\&.
.PP
If the table being analyzed has one or more children,
\fBANALYZE\fR
will gather statistics twice: once on the rows of the parent table only, and a second time on the rows of the parent table with all of its children\&. This second set of statistics is needed when planning queries that traverse the entire inheritance tree\&. The autovacuum daemon, however, will only consider inserts or updates on the parent table itself when deciding whether to trigger an automatic analyze for that table\&. If that table is rarely inserted into or updated, the inheritance statistics will not be up to date unless you run
\fBANALYZE\fR
manually\&.
.PP
If any of the child tables are foreign tables whose foreign data wrappers do not support
\fBANALYZE\fR, those child tables are ignored while gathering inheritance statistics\&.
.PP
If the table being analyzed is completely empty,
\fBANALYZE\fR
will not record new statistics for that table\&. Any existing statistics will be retained\&.
.SH "COMPATIBILITY"
.PP
There is no
\fBANALYZE\fR
statement in the SQL standard\&.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
\fBVACUUM\fR(7), \fBvacuumdb\fR(1), Section\ \&19.4.4, Section\ \&24.1.6
